In the afternoon of this day, two hours before sunset but after tea, Madam Fayerweather and her niece took their accustomed seat at a pleasant window in a small apartment which served as a kind of ante-room to madam’s own chamber. On one side a door opened at right angles with the head of the front stairs, and from which a long passage led through this story. Facing this door was the one which opened at the head of the back stairs; while a third, opposite the window, led into madam’s chamber. Vi’let was seated at the kitchen-door, directly beneath the window, solacing herself with her pipe; while Tabby winked and purred at her side. Jemmy Boynton’s kitchen and wood-shed, at the distance of some rods, were nearly hidden from sight by a hedge of tall lilacs and rose-bushes bounding Mr. Fayerweather’s premises on this side, the view took in gardens, orchards and fields extending to the North river, (a small inlet from the sea so called,) the whole space of which is now covered with streets and houses. Amy was reading to her aunt, who, with a large basket of fragments of silk of various colors at her side, was deeply engaged in an elaborate piece of work, concerning which she affected a great mystery, keeping its purpose and destination a profound secret. Both aunt and niece were so much engrossed by the subject of the book—it was Clarissa Harlow, which had lately been received from England—that the darkening sky and rising wind had escaped their notice. A loud scream from Vi’let aroused their attention. “O! the massiful s’us! there’s the old witch flying away at last! Land’s sake alive! O-h-h-h!” They both looked out, and behold! there was Nanny Boynton in good earnest—at least so their terrors made them believe—high in air, her red cloak fluttering, amidst a cloud of dust, shingles, staves of old tubs, broomsticks, etc. etc. She directed her course south, and was soon lost to view, while the dismay of madam and Amy deprived them of the power of utterance. At length, on Amy’s turning her eyes to the spot whence she supposed the whirlwind had caught up their ill-fated neighbor, what met her sight but the object of their terrors herself, on firm ground, but despoiled of cloak, ’kerchief and cap; her lean and bony arms bare and extended, and each separate hair of her gray locks on end; giving her much the appearance of one of the weird sisters in the midst of an incantation. The aunt and niece were expressing their relief at Nanny’s escape from being carried off bodily, when the recollection of her son, exposed on the water to the fury of a hurricane, now darted into the mind of the former. She shrieked out: “Oh, George! my child, my child! what will become of you! Oh, Mr. Fayerweather, why did you let him go!” she exclaimed to her husband, who at this moment entered the apartment.